Synopses & Reviews
A reissue in Vintage with a new preface.
Andrew Hodges's biography of Alan Turing, the brilliant Cambridge mathematician who masterminded the cracking of the German Enigma code and indeed was the father of the modern computer, was regarded as 'the paperback buy of the season' (Sunday Times) when it was first published.
Synopsis
Includes a new foreword by the author and a preface by Douglas Hofstadter.
Alan Turing was the extraordinary Cambridge mathematician who masterminded the cracking of the German Enigma ciphers and transformed the Second World War. But his vision went far beyond this crucial achievement. Before the war he had formulated the concept of the universal machine, and in 1945 he turned this into the first design for a digital computer.
Turing's far-sighted plans for the digital era forged ahead into a vision for Artificial Intelligence. However, in 1952 his homosexuality rendered him a criminal and he was subjected to humiliating treatment. In 1954, aged 41, Alan Turing committed suicide and one of Britain's greatest scientific minds was lost.
About the Author
ANDREW HODGES was born in suburban London in 1949. Since 1972 he has been working on the theory of twistors -- the new approach to the problems of fundamental physics pioneered by the mathematician Roger Penrose. His interest in the mysterious figure of Alan Turing developed partly from his mathematical background, but also from his participation in the gay liberation movement of the 1970s. In 1977 he decided only a full-length biography of Turing could do justice to the issues involved, and this, his first full-length book, appeared in 1983. He has since returned to mathematics and is a Research Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford University.